Metro News & Reviews

More than 300 small business owners attended Crenshaw Summit today

A huge transit project such as the Crenshaw/LAX Line — with a $2-billion-plus budget — has the potential to bring economic opportunities along the train’s route, the reason Metro held a Business Opportunities Summit today to ensure local business owners know how they can work with Metro and take advantage of everything the project brings.

More than 300 small, minority- and women-owned businesses, as well as job seekers, attended the summit. They were able to meet with various Metro department heads as well as hear from Metro Board Member Mark Ridley-Thomas, Metro Board Member Jackie Dupont-Walker, Metro CEO Art Leahy, the Crenshaw/LAX Community Leadership Council and Danny Bakewell, the L.A. Sentinel Publisher.

Here’s the press release from Metro:

Metro hosted a Business Opportunity Summit today at the California African American Museum in Exposition Park. The goal was to share work and career opportunities with small businesses and individuals along the alignment so that they can take part in the economic benefits created by construction of the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Project.

The Metro Crenshaw/LAX Business Opportunity Summit is a partnership between Metro and the Los Angeles Sentinel Newspapers, including the Crenshaw/LAX Community Leadership Council (CLC).

“Thanks to Measure R, Metro is engaged in one of the nation’s largest public works building programs covering dozens of transit and highway projects,” said Metro Board Chair Diane DuBois. “Learning how to do business with Metro will be a critical step for small, minority and women owned business to participate in the economic benefits these projects are creating.”

“Small business owners are the economic engines of our communities,” said Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mark Ridley-Thomas. “We must empower them and encourage entrepreneurship for all business owners especially minority and women owned businesses. We must harness the economic opportunity that the Crenshaw to LAX transit project will bring to our region. ”

The Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor Project will serve the Crenshaw Corridor, Inglewood, Westchester and the LAX area with eight stations, a maintenance facility for rail vehicles and park and ride lots. Also included in the project will be construction of traction power substations and the acquisition of rail vehicles and maintenance equipment.

“Metro is transforming the urban landscape of Los Angeles thanks to all the Measure R funded transit and highway projects,” said Metro CEO Art Leahy. “At the Economic Summit, Metro reached out to small, minority and women owned businesses and individuals to take full advantage of economic opportunities created by these projects today and beyond.”

The summit attracted more than 300 small, minority and women owned businesses, as well as job seekers who were provided information by Metro’s Diversity and Economic Opportunity Department (DEOD), Human Resources and the company that will build the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Project, Walsh/Shea Constructors

In addition, Metro’s Human Resources staff provided basic information, including how to file a job application and what positions are available, from bus operators to professionals. DEOD staff answered questions about certification and procurement for business owners.

If transit is supposed to bring jobs to blighted areas, then why are the places where the Blue Line serves still poor?

Investing in transit is not the all magic solution that solves our economic problems.

We need to also start lowering taxes, create stronger private-public partnerships to reinvest in blighted properties, clean up the streets, fix potholes, remove stunted trees, fix the uprooted sidewalks, and relax stupid restrictions so that jobs and businesses start coming back to LA to hire more Angelenos instead for leaving for other states.

LA used to be an industry leader in all sorts of things from aerospace, mass transit, high tech electronics. And look what’s left today – all we have left are minimum wage jobs at major chain stores like Walmart, Target, McDonalds and Burger King and everyone renting apartments because they can’t afford home prices in LA County.

We need a massive reboot in city planning. Transit is only a small part of a bigger role of making LA better again.

No. The last thing we need is to have Metro run like a police state where cops are roaming about all over the system demanding papers for freedom of movement.

The rest of the world is able to do this by a simple TAP-in and TAP-out system and positioning officers stationary near the gates to prevent gate hoppers and emergency exit abusers. Just do that instead.

@123,
It may be more complicated than that. First of all, not all stations are gated. Second, there needs to be security “all over the system” do to pan-handling, loud music, profanity, and other security concerns.

Pan-handling, loud music, profanity, and other security concerns will not be a big deal if they can’t get past the real or virtual gates in the first place.

You stop the troublemakers before they enter the system. Lock the gates real or virtual, have watchful police eyes at the gates, everything past the gates is clean which requires no need for security “all over the system.”

Frankly, having security all over the place roaming about randomly throughout the system is very inefficient and wasteful taxpayer spending. The better and more efficient way to go is to keep law enforcement stationary at each individual stations at the gates so that crazies aren’t even let into the system in the first place.